A question has been raised about how the "Bump Rule" works for the Raiders' Outpost if one or more ships in the original run have been removed, either by the Plasma Cannon, the Orbital Teleporter, or by losing control of the Relic Ship. Does the new run have to be bigger than the original run or just bigger than the ship that are left over?

Here is the text from the rulebook...

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Raiders’ OutpostYou must dock a set of three sequentially numbered ships to use the Raiders’ Outpost. There are docking ports for one set of three ships. If the Raiders’ Outpost is occupied, you may dock a higher-value sequence here and move the original ships to the Maintenance Bay.

While docked at the Raiders’ Outpost you may steal a total of four resources from any mix of players or one alien tech card of your choice from one player. If you steal an alien tech card that you already have, the stolen card is discarded immediately and you gain no benefit from doing so.

Example : If a 1-2-3 is docked at the Raiders’ Outpost and the next player rolls a 2-3-4 then that player may remove the 1-2-3 and dock their 2-3-4 at the facility to conduct their own raid. If another player rolls a 3-4-5 or a 4-5-6 then they may remove the 2-3-4 and dock their own sequence and conduct their own raid.

The addition of a second example should clear up this question.

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Example 2: RED has docked a 3-4-5 at the Raiders' Outpost. On his turn GREEN uses the Plasma Cannon to send the 5 back to the Maintenance Bay, leaving a 3 and 4 on the Raiders' Outpost. To dock a higher-value sequence at the Raiders' Outpost GREEN must use a run of three ships that totals more than the sum of the ships currently docked there. The remaining ships total 7 so GREEN may not dock a 1-2-3 since they only total 6. GREEN may dock a 2-3-4 (total 9), a 3-4-5 (total 12) or a 4-5-6 (total 15) to use the Raiders' Outpost.

Cool. This opens up more uses for the Plasma Cannon. Now you most likely only need to blast off you opponent's highest die to be able to place on the Raider's Outpost (provided you have three dice in sequence). With the six blasted off a 4-5-6 series, every series but the 1-2-3 would fit.

Cool. This opens up more uses for the Plasma Cannon. Now you most likely only need to blast off you opponent's highest die to be able to place on the Raider's Outpost (provided you have three dice in sequence). With the six blasted off a 4-5-6 series, every series but the 1-2-3 would fit.

Sorry Simon, but if the 4 and 5 are left the total is 9 so a 1-2-3 and a 2-3-4 would not work. Only a 3-4-5 and a 4-5-6 would beat the 9.

A rule question has arisen concerning the use of the Orbital Teleporter on a ship just acquired through the shipyard. The player docked a pair at the Shipyard, paid his ore and fuel and placed the new ship on the Maintenance Bay as required. He then used the Orbital Teleporter to move that new ship to another facility to use it there.

One the surface, this seems perfectly acceptable, so let's look at the pertinent rules...

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Orbital TeleporterEach turn you may pay two fuel to move one of your docked ships from one orbital facility to a different orbital facility. You may only move one of your ships with the Orbital Teleporter but the moved ship may be used at the new facility in conjunction with other as yet unplaced ships from your fleet. You may not reuse the ship at the same facility from which it was removed. You may not change the value of the ship as it moves from one facility to the other. You may not use the Orbital Teleporter to move a ship off of the Terraforming Station. You may discard the Orbital Teleporter to move any single colony from one territory to another territory. See Repulsor Field above for exceptions.

Example 1: You roll a 2, 5, and 6. You dock the 6 at the Lunar Mine and receive one ore. You then pay two fuel and use your Orbital Teleporter to move the 6 to the Alien Artifact. Next you dock the 2 at the Alien Artifact to bring the ship total to 8 and claim an alien tech card.

Example 2: You are the blue player. You and the red player both have a colony on Lem Badlands so neither ofyou control it. You have one colony on Van Vogt Mountains but green has two colonies there so you are not likely to gain control of it any time soon. You discard your Orbital Teleporter card and move your colony from Van Vogt Mountains to Lem Badlands to gain control of that territory, claim the territory card, and receive the extra victory point.

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Maintenance BayIf you cannot place a ship legally during your turn, place it here. Maintenance Bay gives the player no benefit, but ships placed here are still considered in play and will be gathered with the player’s fleet on their next turn. Any ships purchased through the Shipyard or Burroughs Desert are placed here, as are ships removed from facilities with the Plasma Cannon or from use of the Raiders’ Outpost.

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ShipyardYou must dock two ships of equal value to use the Shipyard. There are enough docking ports to accommodate three pairs of ships at any one time. Each pair of docked ships, along with the payment of the appropriate fuel and ore, earns one new ship from the ship stock.

4th ship: pay one fuel and one ore.5th ship: pay two fuel and two ore.6th ship: pay three fuel and three ore.

Take a ship of your color from the ship stock and place it in the Maintenance Bay. Claim it at the start of your next turn when you gather your fleet. If there are no ships of your color in the ship stock on your turn then you may not use the Shipyard. Because it is possible to lose ships while playing, you may build your 4th, 5th, or 6th ship more than once during the game.

The operative word in all of this is DOCKED.

The Orbital Teleporter allows you to "move one of your DOCKED ships from one orbital facility to a different orbital facility."

The Maintenance Bay is an orbital facility (it's part of the Shipyard) but ships are PLACED at the Maintenance Bay, not DOCKED. Only ships that you roll at the beginning of your turn may be DOCKED at orbital facilities.

Could the rules be clearer? Yes, so, to be clear, let's reword the Maintenance Bay rule as follows:

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Maintenance BayIf you cannot dock a ship legally during your turn, place it here. Maintenance Bay gives the player no benefit. Any ships purchased through the Shipyard or Burroughs Desert are placed here until the player's next turn. A ship on the Maintenance Bay is not considered docked and cannot be moved with the Orbital Teleporter. Ships removed from facilities with the Plasma Cannon or bumped from the Raiders’ Outpost are placed at the Maintenance Bay until the player's next turn.

If you cannot placedock a ship legally during your turn, place it here. Maintenance Bay gives the player no benefit. Any ships purchased through the Shipyard or Burroughs Desert are placed here until the player's next turn. A ship on the Maintenance Bay is not considered docked and cannot be moved with the Orbital Teleporter. Ships removed from facilities with the Plasma Cannon or bumped from the Raiders’ Outpost are placed at the Maintenance Bay until the player's next turn.

Have I answered all your Questions and provided good Customer Service? THAT MAKES NO SENSE! That's the Paradox, my Friend!

Rule Book Errata - Orbital Teleporter

Orbital Teleporter: Each turn you may pay two fuel to move one of your docked ships from one orbital facility to a different orbital facility. You may only move one of your ships with the Orbital Teleporter but the moved ship may be used at the new facility in conjunction with other as yet unplaced ships from your fleet.

So here's my question:

The moved ship must be used at the new facility with ships that are not yet placed, right? The wording of -may-, as well the use of the phrase -in conjunction with other as yet unplaced ships from your fleet- confuses me, despite the good examples in the rulebook.

David, mind to break this down for me again, as well give one or two examples different than the ones in the rulebook? Completely my bad I know, but help is appreciated

You can take my game… when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the board!

Bansko wrote:

The moved ship must be used at the new facility with ships that are not yet placed, right?

Nope, you can move a ship to a new facility by itself (otherwise it would say "must" instead of "may"). I think that phrase is there to clarify that you don't have to wait until you've placed all your ships to use the Orbital Teleporter. So you could place a few, move one, and then place a few more. Or you could place them all and then move one.

Have I answered all your Questions and provided good Customer Service? THAT MAKES NO SENSE! That's the Paradox, my Friend!

Oh boy, the example I have in mind, although its up to now just theory coz of lack of the board, so not sure if this is even valid what I say:

I have two rockets that make a row (2-3), but miss a 4. So I can use the Orbital Teleporter to teleport the 4 to let's say Raider's Outpost and use all three ships there? I assume my question to add a teleported Ship to two already placed ships would not be a game-situation that may come up, that may not even be legitime? Only together with un-placed ships, right?

"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason." -Jack Handey

Bansko wrote:

I have two rockets that make a row (2-3), but miss a 4. So I can use the Orbital Teleporter to teleport the 4 to let's say Raider's Outpost and use all three ships there?

This example would work. To be clear, you have a 2 and a 3 not yet docked (used) and a 4 you already used earlier (perhaps to gather energy or ore, for example). You can move the 4 to the Raider's Outpost in conjunction with the yet unallocated 2 and 3 to make a playable sequence (assuming there is not already an equal or higher set of three ships on the Outpost).

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I assume my question to add a teleported Ship to two already placed ships would not be a game-situation that may come up, that may not even be legitime? Only together with un-placed ships, right?

Usually it would be placed with other ships not yet docked, but that's not the only option. Let us say you place a 2 and a 3 on the Lunar Mine and a 4 on the Solar Converter. You could then use the Orbital Teleporter to move the 4 to the Lunar Mine. You have gained a total of 3 ore and 2 energy.

The Orbital Teleporter might also move a ship to the Colonist Hub where you already have docked ships.

Have I answered all your Questions and provided good Customer Service? THAT MAKES NO SENSE! That's the Paradox, my Friend!

Max, your example is very good, makes complete sense. Makes me feel better that I kinda was right with my assumption. Thank you! Hope the Lunar Mine-Solar Converter situation comes up in a game i will play, and I can crush my friends hehe

I often see a move like this using the Orbital Teleporter...A player pays two fuel to move a 5 or a 6 from someplace else to the Solar Converter to gain three fuel. So, he spends two fuel to get three fuel.

Remember, an Orbital Teleporter MAY NOT be used to move a ship off of the Terraforming Station (because that ship is already being disassembled by the terraformer) but is CAN work the other way around. If you dock a 6 at the Lunar Mine (for example) you can use the Orbital Teleporter to move that ship TO the Terraforming Station.

Also, it does not matter if moving a ship breaks up a run or a set. For example, Maybe you rolled four 3's. You could dock three of them at the Colony Constructor then use the Orbital Teleporter to move one 3 from the Colony Constructor to the Shipyard and use your fourth 3 to complete the pair at the Shipyard to get an extra ship.

Except for future effects (which is why the Terraforming Station is excluded; it's the only location with a future effect for the active player). If you had a 3-4-5 on the Raider's Outpost, and moved the 4 off to pair with another 4 at the Shipyard, another player could now make use of the Raiders Outpost with at 2-3-4 run.

I played my first game Tuesday night. GREAT JOB on an excellent game guys! Had one rule I couldn't quite clarify about the alien artifact though. Does docking a 6 + 6 + 6 get you two cards? I'm assuming not. But docking say a 6 + 6 + 6 + 4 would?

The RED player has four red ships on the board...one on the Lunar Mine, two on the Orbital Market, and one on the Terraforming Station.

GREEN discards his Plasma Cannon card and removes the red ship from the Lunar Mine.

On RED's next turn, the ship on the Terraforming Station returns to the shipyard stock and RED is left with only two ships.

This is a legal move by a strict reading of the rules.

Page 9: Terraforming Station wrote:

You cannot use the Terraforming Station if doing so would reduce your fleet to fewer than three ships of your color.

Page 14: Plasma Cannon wrote:

You may discard a Plasma Cannon to return one ship belonging to another player to the ship stock. The target player must have more than three ships of their color on the board.

However, it breaks the intent of the rules, which is to insure that no player has fewer than three ships of their own color. During play testing we found it nearly impossible to recover after being reduced to only two ships, so we tried to insure that it would not happen. It now seems that we missed one situation that could lead to this exact problem.

The cure is to adjust the wording of the Plasma Cannon's discard power as follows...

Plasma Cannon Rules Rewording wrote:

You may discard a Plasma Cannon to return one ship belonging to another player to the ship stock. The target player must not be reduced to less than three ships of their own color for use on their next turn.

and to include this entire situation as a new example in the rulebook...

Plasma Cannon Example 4 wrote:

RED has four ships on the board...one on the Lunar Mine, two on the Orbital Market, and one on the Terraforming Station. GREEN would like to discard a Plasma Cannon to attack RED and removed the RED ship from the Lunar Mine, but cannot because doing so would leave RED with only two ships after the RED ship on the Terraforming Station returns to the shipyard stock next turn.